Rooftop Gourmet

Salsa Verde or “Green Sauce” is something that is used in many different countries and cuisines. The green-ness refers to the color of the ingredients in the sauce, rather than the sustainability of the ingredients. Italian salsa verde is like a chunky pesto with the addition of capers and anchovies, while Mexican salsa verde is made from roasted tomatillos and jalapenos. Every country has their own version of “green sauce” and it’s a great way to freshen up any dish.

Consisting mainly of fresh herbs, and some type of acid, the sauce can transform a rich, hearty ingredient into a light, summery meal. With a heat wave upon us, I was craving a dinner that would satisfy my red meat craving, yet keep me from sweating and feeling gross. I decided to make my own, “not your average” salsa verde by combining different green ingredients from all different cultures. Basically this was an American Salsa Verde because it was new, fresh, and a giant melting pot of ingredients.

I started out a base of finely minced shallots and garlic. This sauce is served raw so make sure to get those knives working hard because no one wants to bite into a large piece of raw garlic. The next ingredient I tossed into my mixing bowl was edamame. Edamame is a Japanese, immature soybean that is boiled or steamed in the pod. You usually see them on the tables of sushi joints, served as an appetizer because they’re a simple snack that is packed with nutrients. They have the texture of a fresh lima bean and the color of Kermit the Frog. The next ingredient I added to the mix was some thinly sliced haricot vert; France’s elegant version of green beans.

 Haricot vert is the fancy term that the French gave to the slender, chop stick sized green beans. Unlike the American version, the haricot vert are half the size and uniformly straight. I thinly sliced the long beans and added them to the bowl to give a slightly firmer texture and flavor.

 I then rinsed off some capers (a component in the Italian salsa verde) and tossed them into the mix to bring a salty, briny pop to the sauce, along with bunches upon bunches of chopped fresh, Italian flat-leaf parsley. The parsley really brings all of the ingredients together and makes the sauce light and fresh.

 Lastly, I chopped up a handful of fresh mint to add another element of flavor and freshness. Mint is to the Greeks, what basil is to Italians… they put it in everything! I rounded out the sauce with some high quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil, fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper. I stirred it up until it reached the salsa-like consistency that I was looking for and I let it hang out on the counter for a while so that all of the flavors could meld together and meet one another.

 In the meantime, I boiled some baby Yukon Gold potatoes and tossed them with some butter and sea salt as well as prepared my skirt steak. As you have probably noticed, I eat a lot of skirt steak. It is clearly my new favorite, wallet happy, flavorful alternative to pricey rib eyes and dry aged sirloins. It looks like an accordion and is sometimes referred to as the beef diaphram.

 It comes from the “plate” section of the cow, right below the ribs of the animal. What is lacks in tenderness it makes up for big time in flavor, you just need to learn a few simple tricks in order to make it seem tender. Skirts are usually marinated, pounded, or slow-cooked to tenderize them, but simply grilling and slicing on the bias works just fine. If you picture the long, stringy grains of muscle all flowing in the same direction, you want to hold your knife perpendicularto them. Breaking up the strands by thinly slicing makes it easier to chew as opposed to a mouthful of rubber bands. I seasoned my skirts with salt, freshly cracked black pepper, and some balsamic vinegar for some sweetness. They only take a few minutes on the grill, so you really have to let your grates get glowing hot before plopping them down.

 Once the steak had some time to rest off the grill, I sliced it and poured my beautiful, bright green salsa verde all over the top. Each random component glistened in the golden olive oil and slid down the side of the skirt. I topped it with a small salad of picked whole parsley leaves, mint leaves, lemon zest and sliced Fresno chilies. The Fresnos gave the dish a touch of heat that balanced out all of the other bold flavors in the sauce. I chose to pair this steak dish with a unique wine from an up and coming growing region in the United States.

The 2007 NxNW Walla Walla Cabernet Sauvignon sounds like it would come from a place the Muppets would live, but Walla Walla is actually a grape growing appellation of the Colombia River Basin in Washington State and Oregon. The NxNW stands for North by Northwest, and is a collaborative project created by four distinct wine makers who are blending grapes from different plots of land in the area.

The idea is to focus on a single grape varietal and showcase the different ways it is affected when grown in different terriors. It’s a perfect wine for this “not your average” salsa verde because just like the sauce, it has Cabernet grapes that were grown in all different vineyards blended together to create something magical. Of all the wines, I have ever seen, NxNW hands down has the most informative label. It has everything from the select vineyard sites and percentage of grapes from each, to the type of soil and dates of harvest. The wine was a dark purple color and surprisingly chewy for a low alcohol Cab. It was apparent that the fruit was the main focus in this wine.

Cherry, plums, and black raspberries flood your palate with hints of oak and roasted red peppers. After the third or fourth sip, the wine opens up and takes on a sharp cola flavor. The intense fruit played nicely with the char from the grill and the tannins were smooth enough not to overpower the light salsa verde. Thankfully we weren’t eating outside on deck in the 100 degree heat because this wine was big… too big to drink when sweating through your clothes, but perfect with this dish in the air conditioning.

Last week, I had a few friends over for a family style dinner including my friend Dave who recently moved to Chicago. I wanted to make something that had a connection to his new city and to the unforgettable, family-style Italian dinners thrown by his grandfather… some of my earliest food memories. Growing up with Dave was great, because every so often he’d call me up and say, “hey… want to go eat at Pa’s”? It was one of the most exciting events of the year.

If you’re eating at Pa’s… you better bring your appetite because there is never any shortage of food. We would roll into his Italian Cantina, or private basement kitchen with six hungry guys, and he’d have enough to serve twenty. The entire industrial range would be swarmed with pots and pans, filled with homemade sauces that had been simmering for what seemed like days.

Platters of Italian cold cuts, antipasti, and freshly baked bread covered the giant oak table in the heart of the kitchen. The smell of his signature Amatriciana sauce catches your nose, he greets you with a smile and a hug, and instantly you feel like part of the family. Pa is an amazing cook but when I think back on the countless feasts I’ve endured in his kitchen, it’s not the amazing food that sticks out in my mind.

 Rather, it’s his demeanor in the kitchen. He is an entertainer, and you can see it in his eyes, he truly loves having everyone around. His generous warmth and love for sitting down at the table and eating, laughing, and drinking together is so apparent. Pa’s Cantina is definitely where my love for cooking and entertaining developed. Being around family and friends and watching them eat and enjoy your food is one of the most rewarding feelings for me.

No wonder Pa would plop another bowling ball-size meatball on my plate, even after I loosened my belt. Now that Dave was stopping by, it was my chance to recreate that family-style dinner feel in my own kitchen.

 It appears that Dave brought some of the windy city with him to Boston, because the monsoon-like conditions outside made a slow cooked meal sound even more enticing. When I think about Chicago cuisine, it’s all about the sausage. From Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago, to Upton Sinclair’s shocking novel, The Jungle, about the citys’ meat packing district.

 I immediately ran over to the Butcher Shop in the South End to pick up a few links. The Butcher Shop makes their homemade sausage the old school way. They buy whole hogs, grind up the pork and spices, and pipe the mixture into the natural casings… absolutely delicious!

I love that they link the sausages together they way you’d see them hanging in a storefront in Italy, or toying with a dog in an old Tom & Jerry cartoon. I brought the links home and hung them from my kitchen cabinet where they dangled away like a savory wind chime. I wanted to keep everything whole, and rustic, all roasting away together in one pan so I didn’t do much to my ingredients.

I gave my roasted tomato sauce a simple base of garlic and shallots, which I smashed, and sliced. I set my oven to 350 degrees and the stage was set. I pulled out my giant roasting pan, big enough to fit a suckling pig, and gave the smashed cloves and sliced shallots a head start in the oven. I wanted to ensure that the sweetness of roasted garlic and caramelized shallots came through in my sauce. Once they obtained a rich caramel color to them, I tossed in three dozen vine ripe, cherry tomatoes that were about the size of a Titleist Pro V1.

 Roasting whole tomatoes in the oven brings a whole new flavor to the ballgame. It’s so much different than making a sauce from a can because you’re using fresh tomatoes that pop, wilt, and stew in their own natural juices. When you throw in a few other simple ingredients, like shallots, garlic, and fresh herbs the result is comfort food at its finest.

After the tomatoes had popped and softened up, I took the pan from the oven and gently pressed down on them with my tongs, just to release the rest of the liquid. I placed the entire chain of links right into the roasting pan along with some fresh rosemary, oregano and thyme that I snipped from my garden. Back in the oven it went, where we could forget about it for an hour, giving us more time to catch up. The woodsy aromas of the fresh herbs and sweet garlic filled the kitchen as we poured some more wine and hung out over the stove. Typically, you wouldn’t think to use such strong herbs such as rosemary and oregano in a tomato sauce, but in this case, the dish is hearty and rustic. Save the basil for the delicate marinara sauce.

As the sausages roast in the bed of tomatoes, they release their flavorful pork fat drippings into the pan and add another element to the sauce. When the links were cooked through, I removed the pan one last time and finished the sauce with a healthy glug of 25 year old Balsamico. The syrupy vinegar adds more depth and sweetness as well as some striking acidity to help cut through the pork fat. I dumped the sauce onto a platter, and gave everyone a plate and a tear of chewy bread. The skins of the sausage were nice and crispy, perfectly encasing the moist, juicy meat. That signature “pop” of every bite made me smile. The sauce was packed with flavor, totally deserving an equally special wine.

I opened a bottle of 2004 Col D’Orcia Brunello di Montalcino, a wine that I have a special connection with. During my first trip to Italy in 2001, my family visited the small town of Montalcino and got a chance to swing by the hillside, Col D’Orcia estate. There we met with the winemaker, and got a tour of the facility followed by an amazing lunch on the back porch. We were privileged to be able to taste the highly acclaimed 1997 Brunellos before they were even released to the United States. Spending four hours at the table with my entire family, throughout a twelve course meal in the heart of Tuscany wasn’t a bad afternoon. Brunello translates to “nice dark one”, in the local dialect and is the unofficial clone of the Sangiovese grape. It is known as the King of Tuscany due to it’s complexity, power, and price tag.

 Brunellos are often compared to the fine Pinot Noirs of Burgundy because of their smooth tannins, and ripe, fruit driven character. The wine is a deep ruby color, with loads of plum and raspberry fruit, impeccably balanced with slight nuances of oak. The tannins are so smooth, that the wine just rolls off your tongue as masterfully as the Italian language. The wine’s striking acidity makes it food friendly and inviting. As most great Tuscan wines do, this Brunello has faint aromas of cherries and fresh herbs, and a sneaky licorice taste on the finish. This mini family-style feast would make Snooki and the cast of the Jersey Shore jealous…. and the Brunello is far better than Ron-Ron Juice. We even had a slight “Situation” when I burnt my arm on the roasting pan, and I dropped my camera into the bubbling, hot sauce (thank God I bought the warranty). Just like in Pa’s Cantina, it wasn’t about the food we ate or the wine we drank, it was all about the great company we did it in.

The closest I’ve come to Hawaii is spending a week at the Disney Polynesian Resort, where I got up on stage and learned to hula dance as a four year old. I have always wanted to go to Hawaii but over the years, my reasons for making the trek have changed. Growing up, I was intrigued by the volcanoes and amazing beaches, but now I find myself completely captivated by the islands’ diverse cuisine.

The wild ingredients, fresh fish, and cooking techniques all seem to be a fusion of cuisines brought together by multiethnic immigrants over the years, particularly American, Asian, and Portuguese. One of the most traditional Hawaiian dishes is a kalua pig which is the equivalent to what we know as a pig roast. The kalua pig is typically the star of a Luau and it’s wrapped in banana leaves and slow roasted underground.

I wasn’t breaking out the jackhammer in Southie and digging myselff a hole in the sidewalk, so I tried to create a pork dish that would show off some of Hawaii’s contrasting flavor profiles. I love the balance that they use between sweet and spicy, and most of their traditional recipes have great contrasting textures.

I decided to slow roast a pork tenderloin, which is the tender, most delicate part of a pig. That sounds kind of strange referring to a fat animal that snorts around in its own poop as delicate, but believe me, when a pork tenderloin is not overcooked, it melts in your mouth. Why do you think you grew up smothering your pork in apple sauce? Well for one, pork and apples taste great together (as do most fruits), but also because it was overcooked. I remember chewing my grey pork for days at the dinner table, fighting to swallow even the smallest bites.

Now a days, we don’t have to cook our “other white meat” as we do chicken, because we know where our pigs come from, and what they eat. Pork should have a slight pink hue to it in order to remain juicy. Instead of apples, I decided to use plums as my fruit to compliment the pig. I seasoned the plums with Chinese Five Spice, which is a staple in Hawaiian cuisine and now one of my new favorite “reach for” spices in my cupboard.

It’s a blend of dried star anise, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and fennel seeds. It’s very aromatic and Christmas-sy. I sprinkled it generously on top of my raw plums and then gave it a zest of fresh tangerine peel before I threw it into my oven to roast.

Roasting the plums brings out the natural sugars and juices, forming a sticky, sweet sauce that oozes out of every slice. The spice mix and citrus zest combined with the sweet fruit would have been a killer dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I also made a paste in the food processor of garlic, fresh ginger root, and tons of macadamia nuts. This was going to act as my crust over the tenderloin as it roasts, to infuse flavors, add texture, and keeping the pig moist. I turned my oven way down to 300 degrees and let the pork cook slowly and gently. As the paste started to roast, the sweet garlic and spicy ginger perfumed the kitchen as the buttery nuts turned golden brown.

Thankfully, the tenderloin was cooking in a low oven because there were plenty of other steps involved to create this Hawaiian feast. I actually learned how to make sticky sushi rice for the first time. Surprise… it’s very similar to making regular rice except it’s extremely sticky. I stuck my fingers in to taste whether or not it was over cooked and I pulled my hand out covered in white specks. Most of Hawaii’s meals are served over a simple patty of rice so my goal was to form this ball without making a huge mess.

I failed miserably and found small kernels of rice stuck all over my body (don’t itch your face when rolling sushi rice). Siobhan rinsed her hands in rice wine vinegar which completely wiped all of the stickyness away. I also made a pineapple-habanero sauce to drizzle over the juicy roast and add a slight kick to the meal. I started off by sauteing some shallots in butter along with a halved habanero chili and some cubes of fresh pineapple.

As the fiery chili roasted, you could smell the sweetness in the skin, and the burning fire in your nostrils. I tamed some of the heat with a glug of honey before I pureed the sauce. It was quite ironic drizzling the sauce over the plate because it actually looked like a thin applesauce.

When my internal meat thermometer read 145 degrees, I pulled my roast from the oven and let it rest. The meat is still cooking even though it’s out of the oven, so a ten minute nap will bring the meat up five degrees. I thinly sliced the delicate tenderloin trying to keep the crumbly, nutty crust in tact. I plated a few slabs on top of the sushi rice and adorned it with the pineapple-habanero sauce and a few slices of roasted five spice plums. I paired this Hawaiian meal with a German Riesling from esteemed producer Dr Loosen.

The 2007 Dr Loosen Ursiger Wurzgarten Kabinett from Mosel is a terrific wine with Asian cuisine and spicy food (I just spent 20 minutes trying to find out how to get those cool, German dots of punctuation over the “U’s” on Wordpress with little success) Typically, you’ll see most pork dishes paired with medium bodied, fruity reds like Malbec, but in this case the pig is delicate and has lots of spicy flavors swarming around your palate. At around 8% alcohol, this Riesling is rather sweet, but not overly syrupy like some dessert wines.

The grapes are grown in red clay soil at a wicked high elevation creating a clean, minerally wine. The nose is spicy and fruity with an odor that smells like frozen honey. There is tons of acidity, with flavors of lime and tropical fruit. The touch of sweetness helps calm the heat in the sauce and wakens all of the flavors in the spice rub. I have never quite experienced an earthy white wine, but I can truly taste hints of the soil in the finish despite how crisp and refreshing the acidity is.

The juicy pork melted in your mouth and the crispy Macadamia nut crust was loaded with roasted garlic and ginger flavors. Hawaii is also famous for SPAM… ground pork in a can, which this dish was the polar opposite of. The pig was definitely still the star, but when dressed with all types of flavors from different cuisines it brought it to a whole new level… so good that I was tempted to break out the hula moves that Minnie taught me 23 years ago.

Wood has played an integral role in winemaking and in various types of cuisine throughout time. From Early Man, first learning to cook their food over a wood burning fire, to pit masters using Mesquite chips to smoke and flavor their brisket in the South. Wine would not be what it is today if it weren’t for French and American Oak barrels that add all sorts of characteristics and flavors to the juice.

Those subtle, rich vanilla nuances in your Cabernet… missing. The fleshy, buttery body that your California Chardonnay possesses… bye bye. The smoky, cedar and cinnamon stick finish in your elegant Pinot Noir… gonzo. Wood is such an important component in wine because it helps balance the fruit and tannins.

Last night I decided to make a dish, and use a technique that was said to be developed in the Pacific Northwest. The cuisine in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska is nowquite diverse but there are still many Asian and Native American influences. Pacific Northwestern cuisine contains a alot of fresh salmon and shellfish that is usually smoked or roasted on cedar planks. In one of my very first blog posts, I used this technique with an empty cigar box that I had laying around the house.

I took one whiff of the box and knew that it was made of Spanish Cedar. The smell is so distinct and rich. It reminds me of a walking into a sauna or slipping into a cedar hot tub. A while back, I bought some pre-cut cedar planks from Whole Foods, so I soaked them overnight in salted water which keeps them from burning on the grill.

Salmon is a full bodied, oily fish that takes on the smoke so well without getting over powered. This is one of the easiest preparations to do and your guests will be so impressed by how moist and flavorful the fish comes out. I removed the planks from the water and patted them dry with some paper towels. The spicy cedar notes were already perfuming my kitchen while I oiled up the top side of each plank.

 I arranged a landing pad of thinly sliced lemons on one side of the plank for the salmon to rest on. As the board heats up the zesty lemon keeps the fish moist and gives the fish some acidity.

 A sprinkle of salt, cracked black pepper, and a few sprigs of fresh thyme from my garden, and they were ready to make their way to the grill. I preheat my grill full blast, but then turn it down to about 300 degrees before I slide the planks to the back. You want the fish to cook slowly, as it absorbs all of the smoky flavors with the hood of the grill closed. Within seconds, the entire neighborhood was popping their heads out of their windows and coming out on their roofdecks to see where the smell was coming from.

The strong cedar aromas filled the air and my grill looked like it was sending smoke signals. This is something that you could prepare ahead of time if you’re having a dinner party, so when your guests arrive, all you have to do is throw the planks on the grill. Believe me, they will be intrigued by the smokiness and you won’t even need plates.

Just when the salmon filets were slightly firm, and medium rare on the inside, I finished them with some more fresh thyme and a touch of butter to add some richness and to marry the woodsy aromas. I removed the planks from the grill and took them inside to let them rest. I made a quick side dish of sauteed garlicky spinach and shaved fennel. I thought that the sweet garlic and the licorice flavors in the fennel would pair nicely with the smoky fish.

The flaky, pink flesh broke away quite easily and was loaded with cedar notes. The peppery thyme, and roasted lemons definitely lightened it up and added the liveliness that the dish needed. Since I was using wood to add flavor to the fish, I chose a wine that uses French Oak barrels to add flavor to the juice.

 The 2006 Clos du Val Pinot Noir spends one year in new French Oak which gives the medium bodied red a smoky, spicy character. The nose is full of black cherry, strawberry, and who would have thought…cedar! The silky texture of the wine in your mouth is what really impressed me the most. I wanted to swish it around on my tongue all night without swallowing because the tannins were so soft. Flavors of cherry, strawberry and cinnamon were clearly present and the finish had a slight twang of crystallized ginger.

A Pinot this multi layered and complex was reminiscent of a fine red Burgundy. It complimented the slow roasted salmon perfectly. There are some nights when a wine pairing turns out great, and then there are nights like this when the pairing is simply magical. This meal gave me a better appreciation for what wood can do for you. I wanted to run outside and hug a tree.

Robert Atkins eat your heart out! Carb-phobic consumers, cover your eyes. This whopping mouthful of an appetizer is my submission in Davio’s Boston’s Spring Roll Creation Contest. Davio’s is famous for their Philly Cheese Steak Spring Roll, which my tastebuds first got the pleasure of devouring six years ago at Spinazola, a foodie-centric Boston fundraiser. Since then, reminiscing that magical experience has led me to their downtown restaurant, and urged me to wolf down about fifteen during halftime at Gillette Stadium. These spring rolls are everywhere!

I stumbled upon this exciting contest on Facebook last week and noticed that I only had one night left to submit my recipe. My competitive nature led me to the Super 88 Asian Market in search of spring roll pastry dough because I wasn’t going down without making them for real in my own kitchen. The winner gets their spring roll creation on the Davio’s menu along side the gold medal winner from Philly.

Trying to stay within the same “comfort food” genre that Davio’s spring rolls fall into, I decided to give Vietnam a taste of the Deep South. Good old fashioned, homemade macaroni and cheese was the poison that I picked to become gift wrapped and fried. In the past, I have made several versions of homemade macaroni and cheese but I wanted to stick with something basic for this contest. I started by creating a light roux (equal parts butter and flour) whisked over medium heat to act as the base for my cheese sauce.

 Once the flour taste is cooked out, and a golden blonde paste is formed in the bottom of the pan, I poured in my milk and kept my forearm busy whisking away. The three cheeses I picked were Gruyere, Fontina, and Parmigiano-Reggiano because they are amazing melting cheeses, and they all have distinct, pungent flavors.

The Gruyere is funky and creamy, the Fontina is sharp, and the Parm is nutty and salty. I slowly added all three cheeses into my Bechemel and let them melt away and thicken the sauce. After everything was incorporated, and I needed to put yellow police tape up around my stovetop to keep me away from licking the spoon, I boiled my pasta.

I chose Ditalini because it was a micro-macaroni, perfect for stuffing inside of a spring roll wrapper. Once the mini tubes were al dente, I drained them and tossed them into the bubbling cauldron of cheese sauce. I was tempted to grab a fork and dig in, but this was a competition and I needed all the product that I made to practice my rolling technique.

Spring Roll pastry is different from spring roll wrappers, which I learned the hard way, after Siobhan came home with the transparent rice noodles. The transparent variety is typically eaten raw and stuffed with seafood and julienned vegetables, but in southern Vietnam, the deep fried pastry is more common.

 I finally found them, tucked away in the frozen section of the market and thawed them out on my countertop. To keep the pastry moist, I topped it with a clean, damp kitchen towel, which helped prevent the sheets from cracking.

These sheets are paper thin, and need to be peeled away one by one while you’re rolling them up. I gently brushed them with egg wash, which acts as a glue, and dropped a handful of macaroni and cheese in the center of the square. I made sure that I let the mac and cheese cool down before rolling them because the heat wouldn’t be good for the delicate pastry. Pinching, rolling, tucking, and folding… roll after roll until I reached my capacity and figured I’d have a heart attack if I made one more. I felt like I was smuggling pasta from a buffet into my neatly folded handkerchief.

 Once my makeshift deep fryer full of vegetable oil came to temperature, I started dropping these cigar-like tubes of deliciousness in one by one. The frying process was long and grueling, but my skin, and kitchen survived the trauma. I dissected my test victim and sliced it in half, revealing a gorge of flowing cheese sauce and a perfect bisection of tiny noodles. 

Threre wasn’t even enough time to blow on it to cool it down, before my brain told me to dive right in and take a bite. They were like Russian Matryoshka dolls of fried cheese… cylinders inside cylinders of mouthwatering, cheesy, euphoria. Just to add an orgasmic punch to the appetizer, Siobhan separated some eggs, and made a quick aioli laced with tons of white truffle oil. The three cheeses alone were something to ogle about, but when dipped in the aromatic truffle sauce, it was time to bring out the bibs. The crispy, thin skin of the spring roll wrapper was the perfect vessel to hold this down home, comfort classic.

 I ate two spring rolls and then took a break to watch some t.v, but I kept finding myself sneaking back into the kitchen for more carb on carb lovin’. I would pair this dish with a dry, crisp Sauvignon Blanc and a trip to the cardiologist. You will need a fresh wine, with triumphant acidity to cut through the richness in this spring roll. The other Davio’s fans have some great ideas, so it will be a true test to see if these fried, steakhouse sides hold up in the spring roll battle. Win or lose, I now have my go-to appetizer recipe for the start of the 2010 Patriots season.